Quick, how many screens do you have? How many things do you own that need charging? Guess, then start to catalog and I bet you guessed a smaller number than what you own. It can be pretty crazy how many devices we end up with. There are wires running everywhere and we have to make sure we have the right charger. Today you can see an inventory of our electronics and I can share the stories of how we acquired them.

Cameras

S0ny a6000: Purchased the body used for $375 and a used fixed lens for $270 both on eBay.

The camera was a killer deal and only had a shutter count of 373. The camera is for my wife because I’m fine with taking pictures from my phone. In fact, I thought I was cool back when I had a 1.3MP phone.

Phones

iPhone 6: Bought this used on eBay for around $400 in late 2015.

Amazon Fire Phone: Brand new $125 including a year of Amazon Prime from eBay.

Galaxy Note 2: New for $99 from Freedompop.

$20 Android Phone: This was an add on in cart option when I was buying the Galaxy Note 2, I went for it.

Four phones for two people may seem excessive, but the total cost was under $650 which you can’t even get a new iPhone for, especially the rumored $1000+ iPhone 8. Each Android phone was several generations behind the current one. In fact, I got the Note 2 when the Note 6 was out. My wife had an iPhone 5C before this but due to an extremely lucrative Discover card deal WE NEEDED an iPhone. It was 20% cashback on purchases with Apple Pay.

The iPhone and Fire phone get used abroad and the other two are maintaining our numbers and collecting voicemails and text messages. Our phone plan in Europe is $4 a week per phone and on Freedompop it is $2.49 a month.

Computers

At one time my wife and I were sharing the MacBook Air, but then there were times when we both wanted to use it so we decided to get another.

Speakers

Bose Soundlink Wireless Headphones: $165 from Boxed.

Mini bluetooth speaker: Gift from someone coming from China.

Bose headphones are not cheap. I was able to get a decent price by buying them from Boxed on sale and I had an Amex offer that gave $30 for purchases over $100. The mini speaker is pretty good and I was told it only cost $15.

Readers

Kindle Paperwhite: New from Staples for $20.

If you are thinking it is impossible to get a Kindle for $20 you are kind of right. The Paperwhite is regularly $120, but I waited for it to be discounted to $100. Then I used $80 in ink rewards to get the price to $20 plus tax. Using $20 from Discover Rewards money that piled up from that Apple Pay deal I got a $25 Staples gift card.

What’s missing

The biggest thing we don’t own is a TV. We haven’t ever had one and have no plans to. Sometimes we watched a show or movie on a projector, but now we do everything on our laptops.

We don’t have any of those power packs. I see people charging their phones with them, but then it is like carry a double thick phone. I don’t understand their use to be honest. If a phone isn’t going to last a day then perhaps consider a different one.

We don’t have a video game console because we don’t play games. My first and only console was a GameCube which my brother now has. I challenge anyone to Monkeyball 2 Baseball. Sometimes we play board games, but we sold most of those before moving.

Conclusion

As you can see, I didn’t pay full price for anything. If you can wait for something the price drops quite a bit, but its functionally is the same that it was released with. Additionally, I found lots of ways to reduced the price further. This could be buying the product used or finding deals and coupons. Consider your technology and if you are using it all because you may be able to sell it. We used to have an iPad 2 but that is now it is another home.